The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from

[Gmat2Go]

The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation in a display of courtship.
a) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation
b) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females
c) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, decorated with flowers and other vegetation that the males use to attract females
d) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, having decorated them with flowers and other vegetation, to attract females
e) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that are built by the males and decorated with flowers and other vegetation to attract females


I don't understand in e) the explanation said " Moreover, the placement of the modifier "that are built by the males" incorrectly implies the sticks and twigs are built by the males" but in b) isn't it pretty much the same thing "sticks and tiwgs that the males build" Can you explain why B) doesn't say that?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Ah yes. If the explanation is discriminating based on THAT distinction, then ... well, it's the wrong explanation. You're correct to point out that the modifiers in B and E are constructed in essentially the same way. What's more, they're both fine - when you have a construction involving 'an X of Y', or, in general, 'X (preposition) Y', it's possible for the modifier to refer to EITHER 'Y' or the entire phrase 'X (preposition) Y'. We've seen copious examples of this on official problems.

We will attend to the problem in the explanation; thank you for calling attention to it.

The real problem with choice E is one of meaning. Specifically, it says 'built by the males and decorated with flowers and other vegetation'. That's a problem, because it doesn't carry the intended meaning: i.e., that the males decorate the bowers in addition to building them. In fact, this wording seems to imply that the males aren't the ones that decorate the bowers, because the sentence goes to the pain of specifically saying 'built by the males' before mentioning the decoration (by some anonymous/unknown agent). Since the original sentence clearly implies that the males both build and decorate the bowers - and you aren't supposed to change the meaning of a sentence unless the original is nonsense - you have to stick with that.

[supshalu]

Ron,

So to sum it up whenevr have "X of Y That " and " X of Y,which " type sentence
and as you rightly said there are many examples of such kind. Dont you think its confusing to identify.. ??

Any tips to ease out this ?

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

So to sum it up whenevr have "X of Y That " and " X of Y,which " type sentence
and as you rightly said there are many examples of such kind. Dont you think its confusing to identify.. ??

Any tips to ease out this ?

when you have "that", the rules are pretty lax.
see #50 in the DIAGNOSTIC TEST in the OG (in the front of the book - NOT the regular sentence correction part) for evidence of this.

--

for "which", the rules are stricter.
the "WHICH" will ALWAYS stand for the NOUN THAT DIRECTLY PRECEDES THE COMMA, provided that noun is "eligible".
by "eligible" we mean that it matches the singular/plural quality of the verb that follows "which".
if the noun is NOT "eligible", then "WHICH" may stand for an entire noun + prepositional phrase.

examples:
the smallest camcorder in the world, which is 11 inches long...
--> in this case, "world" is an eligible noun (since "world" is singular, and "is" is singular). therefore, "which" must stand for "world", and so this is wrong (it implies that the world is only 11 inches long).

the smallest camcorders in the world, which are between 9 and 11 inches long...
--> this is correct.
"world" is NOT an eligible noun (it's singular, clashing with the plural "which are"), so this time "which" stands for the whole phrase of "the smallest camcorders in the world".

--

in any case, CONTEXT is useful in determining the referent of these pronouns, especially "that".

[sudaif]

the new MGMAT explanation says that the birds derive their name from the elaborate bowers and not from the fact that the males build these bowers to attract females. I am not sure what is wrong with the the latter. Please advise. Thank you.

[mschwrtz]

Notice that both A and E, the only answers that include "the fact that," are also wrong for other reasons. This sort of awkward expression is very commonly a marker for a wrong answer, even when other flaws do the real work of disqualifying the answer. It's a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the better test-taker.

[pawan.singh260684]

Hey Ron, question on this.. 'That' modifies to Bowers right?
Coz' if we ask 'what the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females'
The answer will be Bowers, I don't think elaborate bowers, and in that case, shouldn't it be 'those' instead of that?

[tim]

Yes to your first question and no to your second. What makes you think the "that" should be changed to "those"? We are talking about the bowers that are built by the males. To change it to "those" would clearly be wrong..

[redable]

Hi, I have a question about the option A:

The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation in a display of courtship.

the explaination is:" the bowerbird does not derive its name from the fact that it builds bowers, but from the bowers themselves"
I cannot catch the meaning. what's the different?

Thanks in advance~

[elevinty]

I'll try to explain it for you.
In Sentence correction, you have to read the sentence literally.
In this instance, literally, you read the sentence that the bird got its name from a fact, meaning, it got named after a fact and not after elaborate bowers.

[dmitryknowsbest]

Exactly right, elevinty.

Let's look at another example:

"I gained 20 pounds due to the fact that I ate nothing but donuts for a month."

This isn't quite right. A fact didn't cause my weight gain; eating donuts did! A corrected sentence might read like this:

"I gained 20 pounds by eating nothing but donuts for a month."

In general, be wary of the phrase "the fact that." It is likely to be used incorrectly. In fact, it is hard to think of many sentences were it would be needed.

[maxschauss]

The deeper I go into the questions and try to understand them the more confused I get. At the end, I will just guess randomly because there are too many contradictory rules.

Okay - in your last example the fact IS that I ate too many donuts.
Or lets say it algebraically: FACT = eat too many donuts
And no, I dont think a fact in general is to eat too many donuts but in this specific case it is. Like x gets specific values in different problems.

Since we have FACT = eat too many donuts we can replace the one with the other. Its just the same.

[tim]

i can't tell if you have a question here or are just complaining, but nothing you wrote makes any sense, so whatever strategy you are using here is not likely to help you on the GMAT..

[alexcey]

Ron,
for "which", the rules are stricter.
the "WHICH" will ALWAYS stand for the NOUN THAT DIRECTLY PRECEDES THE COMMA, provided that noun is "eligible".
by "eligible" we mean that it matches the singular/plural quality of the verb that follows "which".
if the noun is NOT "eligible", then "WHICH" may stand for an entire noun + prepositional phrase.

examples:
the smallest camcorder in the world, which is 11 inches long...
--> in this case, "world" is an eligible noun (since "world" is singular, and "is" is singular). therefore, "which" must stand for "world", and so this is wrong (it implies that the world is only 11 inches long).

the smallest camcorders in the world, which are between 9 and 11 inches long...
--> this is correct.
"world" is NOT an eligible noun (it's singular, clashing with the plural "which are"), so this time "which" stands for the whole phrase of "the smallest camcorders in the world".

--

in any case, CONTEXT is useful in determining the referent of these pronouns, especially "that".

Ron, are the rules above still valid? I remember watching one of your sessions on the usage of WHICH and in that session you stated that in "noun1 prep noun2, which", pronoun which can point to noun1 if
1) prep noun2 is a modifier to noun1
2) which makes sense with noun1

So if we have the situation above but pronoun which agrees in number with both noun1 and noun2 (or the tense is in the past so we can't tell), can which still point to the entire noun phrase?

Arguably, phrase "the smallest camcorder in the world, which is 11 inches long" fits both criteria.

For instance:
"Here is the house with snakes, which has thousands of species"
"Here was the house with snakes, which had thousands of species"

In the last example we don't have help from the singular/plural aspect of the verb Has and word "snakes" become the first "eligible" word, as per your original comment. However, but I would think that the referent of which is still validly "the house".

[tim]

Well, Ron gave a rule in black and white above. If you want to question the validity of that rule, you're going to have to do better than a vague mention of something else he said somewhere. :) Do you have a specific reference we can look up? If not, let's stick to the rule that we have actual evidence of from Ron's writing above. That should answer all the remaining questions you have. Be sure to let us know if you need further help on this point..